


Truth of the Copperhead

by voleuse



Category: Justified
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24592495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: Mags revered what had come before, but didn't know where she was going.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Truth of the Copperhead

**Author's Note:**

> Set somewhere in the middle of S2.

No one ever knew there was coal in them mountains  
Till a man from the northeast arrived  
Wavin' hundred dollar bills, said, "I'll pay you for your minerals"  
But he never left Harlan alive

The Lord didn't see fit to give Mags even one son with sufficient wit and fortitude, to her eternal disappointment. Sure enough, they were good boys, loyal and with a certain kind of cunning. Problem was they got their heads turned too quick--couldn't understand how to manage their business without a piece in their hands.

Pervis, bless his heart, had been a proper partner for her: Solid, with good business sense, and the wisdom to recognize he couldn't hold the family up all by his lonesome. (That had been Bo Crowder's failing, and apparently a fatal one. Family needed care, not constant contempt.) When he passed, Mags gave herself a week to mourn proper before she started making house calls.

Most folks, when she looked them in the eyes, knew enough to give her a nod. Those that didn't, well. Her grandmama taught her all sorts of ways to make the right kind of impression.

***

It was heritage that Mags thought of, as she considered the decades to come. So many generations of women, going back all the way to before Rabbit Holler was Rabbit Holler. Mags could remember back when she was a girl, when the sun shone pale and pollen was heavy enough to dust her shoes, her grandmama would take her out up the mountain and have her look close at the things that grew in the shadows of the trees. Call her over to the kettle she kept ever-simmering on the stove, then show her the right way to crush, muddle, and strain their findings until they distilled clearer than fresh moonshine.

It was meant to be passed down from mother to daughter and on and on. But Mags didn't have a daughter, and not even a granddaughter. The lack troubled her the longer time went on, a sense of responsibility that she was sure Doyle's mewler of a wife couldn't even bear considering. All this knowing, and she worried, sometimes, that she might be the one to let it die away. That those traditions wouldn't be passed on, and that her sons would squander the family business on things more ephemeral than the land.

Then she found Loretta McCready under her care, and that girl had a spitfire rattler of a mind if ever she saw one. 

So Mags began to plan.

**Author's Note:**

> Title adapted from "[What I Believe](http://www.jeff-worley.com/jeff/samples/sample-a-little-luck/)" by Jeff Worley. Epigraph taken from "[You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cco-pCb0klU)," performed by Darrell Scott.


End file.
